Pupils from Yewdale Primary School have helped bring a splash of colour to our Sandsfield Way development in Carlisle after taking part in a hands-on gardening experience designed to encourage environmental responsibility and give them a lasting connection to a new neighbourhood taking shape in their local area.
The visit, organised as part of our ongoing community engagement programme, gave the children the opportunity to learn about landscaping, explore a live construction site and make their own contribution to a development that has started to welcome local families.
The morning began in the show home garden, where the pupils were joined by Westwood Landscape to create their own colourful addition to the development ready for the show homes opening. Working together, the children planted a variety of flowers, including their very own sunflowers, which they carefully labelled with their names so they can return in the coming weeks to watch them grow. The activity encouraged the pupils to take pride in the environment around them while leaving a lasting feature for future homeowners and visitors to enjoy.
To celebrate their efforts, each child received a gardening trowel, a pair of gardening gloves and a sweet treat to take home, with the hope that the experience will inspire them to continue planting, gardening and caring for nature with their families.
The visit continued with a guided tour of the live development, where pupils learnt about the different stages of building new homes, explored the variety of trades involved in construction and discovered the importance of health and safety on site. They also had the opportunity to look around the show home, helping them understand how a construction site is transformed into a thriving neighbourhood.
Nicky Gordon, Managing Director at Genesis Homes, said:
“A great neighbourhood isn’t just defined by the homes within it, but by the experiences and connections that help shape it. Giving local children the opportunity to contribute to Sandsfield Way before the first families move in reflects exactly what Genesis Homes is about – creating places that people feel proud to be part of from the very beginning.
“Now the show homes are open, we hope the pupils will return to see their sunflowers growing and that they’ll remember they played a small role in creating this new community. It’s a simple activity, but one that captures the importance of caring for the places we live and helping them flourish for future generations.”
Tim Catton, Managing Director at Westwood Landscape, said:
“It was a great privilege to join colleagues from Genesis Homes in the show home garden at Sandsfield Way to help pupils from Yewdale School plant vibrant colour bedding and to see them interact with plants, soil and very colourful watering cans! Being part of this whole project from Design, right through to installation and completion was very rewarding and to finish the project off with the Yewdale School pupils was the icing on the cake!”
